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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
He’d have come to the house and burned us in our beds, only
a fellow like that is too much of a coward to run the risk of
being seen.”
“But, Harry, why didn’t he light it when he’d done it?” said
Mrs. Heathcote.
“Because the Almighty sent the rain at the very moment,”
said Harry, striking the top rail of one of the pens with his fist.
“I’m not much given to talk about Providence, but this looks
like it, does it not?”
“He might have put a match in at the moment?”
“Rain or no rain? Yes, he might. But he was interrupted by
more than the rain. I got into the shed myself just at the moment — I and Jacko. It was last night, when the rain was pouring. I heard the man, and dark as was the night, I saw his figure
as he fled away.”
“You didn’t know him?” said Miss Daly.
“But that boy, who has the eyes of a cat, he knew him.”
“Jacko?”
“Jacko knew him by his gait. I should have hardly wanted
any one to tell me who it was. I could have named the man at
once, but for the fear of doing an injustice.”
“And who was it?”
“Our friend Medlicot’s prime favorite and new factotum,
Mr. William Nokes. Mr. William Stokes is the gentleman who
intends to burn us all out of house and home, and Mr. Medlicot is the gentleman whose pleasure it is to keep Mr. Nokes in
the neighborhood.”
The two women stood awe-struck for a moment, but
a sense of justice prevailed upon the wife to speak. “That may
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
be all true,” she said. “Perhaps it is as you say about that man.
But you would not therefore think that Mr. Medlicot knows
any thing about it?”
“It would be impossible,” said Kate.
“I have not accused him,” said Harry; “but he knows that
the man was dismissed, and yet keeps him about the place.
Of course he is responsible.”
CHAPTER IV
HARRY HEATHCOTE’S APPEAL
For the first mile between the wool-shed and the house
Heathcote and the two ladies rode without saying a word.
There was something so terrible in the reality of the danger
which encompassed them that they hardly felt inclined to discuss it. Harry’s dislike to Medlicot was quite a thing apart. That
some one had intended to burn down the wool-shed, and had
made preparation for doing so, was as apparent to the women
as to him. And the man who had been balked by a shower of
rain in his first attempt might soon find an opportunity for
a second. Harry was well aware that even Jacko’s assertion
could not be taken as evidence against the man whom he suspected. In all probability no further attempt would be made
upon the wool-shed; but a fire on some distant part of the run
would be much more injurious to him than the mere burning of a building. The fire that might ruin him would be one
which should get ahead before it was seen, and scour across
the ground, consuming the grass down to the very roots over
thousands of acres, and destroying fencing over many miles.
Such fires pass on, leaving the standing trees unscathed, avoiding even the scrub, which is too moist with the sap of life for
consumption, but licking up with fearful rapidity every thing
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
that the sun has dried. He could watch the wool-shed and
house, but with no possible care could he so watch the whole
run as to justify him in feeling security. There need be no
preparation of leaves. A match thrown loosely on the ground
would do it. And in regard to a match so thrown, it would be
impossible to prove a guilty intention.
“Ought we not to have dispersed the heap?” said Mrs.
Heathcote at last. The minds of all of them were full of
the matter, but these were the first words spoken.
“I’ll leave it as it is,” said Harry, giving no reason for his
decision. He was too full of thought, too heavily laden with
anxiety, to speak much. “Come, let’s get on; you’ll want your
dinner, and it’s getting dark.” So they cantered on, and got off
their horses at the gate, without another word. And not another word was spoken on the subject that night. Harry was
very silent, walking up and down the veranda with his pipe in
his mouth — not lying on the ground in idle enjoyment —
and there was no reading. The two sisters looked at him from
time to time with wistful, anxious-eyes, half afraid to disturb
him by speech.
As for him, he felt that the weight was all on his own shoulders. He had worked hard, and was on the way to be rich. I do
not know that he thought much about money, but he thought
very much of success. And he was by nature anxious, sanguine,
and impulsive. There might be before him, within the next
week, such desolation as would break his heart. He knew
men who had been ruined, and had borne their ruin almost
without a wail — who had seemed contented to descend to
security and mere absence from want. There was his own su-
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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
perintendent, Old Bates, who, though he grumbled at every
thing else, never bewailed his own fate. But he knew of himself that any such blow would nearly kill him — such a blow,
that is, as might drive him from Gangoil, and force him to be
the servant instead of the master of men. Not to be master of
all around him seemed to him to be misery. The merchants at
Brisbane who took his wool and supplied him with stores
had advanced money when he first bought his run, and he
still owed them some thousands of pounds. The injury which
a great fire would do him would bring him to such a condition
that the merchants would demand to have their money repaid.
He understood it all, and knew well that it was after this fashion that many a squatter before him had been ruined.
“Speak a word to me about it,” his wife said to him, imploringly, when they were alone together that night.
“My darling, if there were a word to say, I would say it. I must
be on the watch, and do the best I can. At present the earth is
too damp for mischief.”
“Oh that it would rain again!”
“There will be heat enough before the summer is over; we
need not doubt that. But I will tell you of every thing as we go
on. I will endeavor to have the man watched. God bless you!
Go to sleep, and try to get it out of your thoughts.”
On the following morning he breakfasted early, and
mounted his horse without saying a word as to the purport of
his journey. This was in accordance with the habit of his life,
and would not excite observation; but there was something in
his manner which made both the ladies feel that he was intent on some special object. When he intended simply to ride
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round his fences or to visit the hut of some distant servant,
a few minutes signified nothing. He would stand under the veranda and talk, and the women would endeavor to keep him
from the saddle. But now there was no loitering, and but little
talking. He said a word to Jacko, who brought the horse for
him, and then started at a gallop toward the wool-shed.
He did not stop a moment at the shed, not even entering
it to see whether the heap of leaves had been displaced during the night, but went on straight to Medlicot’s Mill. He rode
the nine miles in an hour, and at once entered the building in
which the canes were crushed. The first man he met was
Nokes, who acted as overseer, having a gang of Polynesian laborers under him — sleek, swarthy fellows from the South Sea
Islands, with linen trowsers on and nothing else — who crept
silently among the vats and machinery, shifting the sugar as
it was made.
“Well, Nokes,” said Harry, “how are you getting on? Is Mr.
Medlicot here?”
Nokes was a big fellow, with a broad, solid face, which
would not have condemned him among physiognomists but
for a bad eye, which could not look you in the face. He had
been a boundary rider for Heathcote, and on an occasion had
been impertinent, refusing to leave the yard behind the house
unless something was done which those about the place refused to do for him. During the discussion Harry had come in.
The man had been drinking, and was still insolent, and Harry
had ejected him violently, thrusting him over a gate. The man
had returned the next morning, and had then been sent about
his business. He had been employed at Medlicot’s Mill, but
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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
from the day of his dismissal to this he and Harry had never
met each other face to face.
“I’m pretty well, thank ye, Mr. Heathcote. I hope you’re
the same, and the ladies. The master’s about somewhere, I take
it. — Picky, go and find the master.” Picky was one of the Polynesians, who at once started on his errand.
“Have you been over to Gangoil since you left it?” said
Harry, looking the man full in the face.
“Not I, Mr. Heathcote. I never go where I’ve had words.
And, to tell you the truth, sugar is better than sheep. I’m very
comfortable here, and I never liked your work.”
“You haven’t been at the wool-shed?”
“What, the Gangoil shed! What the blazes ‘d I go there for?
It’s a matter of ten miles from here.”
“Seven, Nokes.”
“Seven, is it? It is a longish seven miles, Mr. Heathcote.
How could I get that distance? I ain’t so good at walking as
I was before I was hurt. You should have remembered that, Mr.
Heathcote, when you laid hands on me the other day.”
“You’re not much the worse for what I did; nor yet for
the accident, I take it. At any rate, you’ve not been at Gangoil
wool-shed?”
“No, I’ve not,” said the man, roughly. “What the mischief
should I be doing at your shed at night-time?”
“I said nothing about night-time.”
“I’m here all day, ain’t I? If you’re going to palm off any story against me, Mr. Heathcote, you’ll find yourself in the wrong
box. What I does I does on the square.”
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Heathcote was now quite sure that Jacko had been
right. He had not doubted much before, but now he did not
doubt at all but that the man with whom he was speaking was
the wretch who was endeavoring to ruin him. And he felt certain, also, that Jacko was true to him. He knew, too, that he had
plainly declared his suspicion to the man himself. But he had
resolved upon doing this. He could in no way assist himself in
circumventing the man’s villainy by keeping his suspense to
himself. The man might be frightened, and in spite of all that
had passed between him and Medlicot, he still thought it possible that he might induce the sugar grower to co-operate with
him in driving Nokes from the neighborhood. He had spent
the night in thinking over it all, and this was the resolution to
which he had come.
“There’s the master,” said Nokes. “If you’ve got any thing to
say about any thing, you’d better say it to him.”
Harry had never before set his foot upon Medlicot’s land
since it had been bought away from his own run, and had felt
that he would almost demean himself by doing so. He had often looked at the canes from over his own fence, as he had
done on the night of the rain; but he had stood always on his
own land. Now he was in the sugar-mill, never before having
seen such a building. “You’ve a deal of machinery here, Mr.
Medlicot,” he said.
“It’s a small affair, after all,” said the other. “I hope to get
a good plant before I’ve done.”
“Can I speak a word with you?”
“Certainly. Will you come into the office, or will you go
across to the house?”
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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
Harry said that the office would do, and followed Medlicot
into a little box-like inclosure which contained a desk and two
stools.
“Not much of an office, is it? What can I do for you, Mr.
Heathcote?”
Then Harry began his story, which he told at considerable length. He apologized for troubling his neighbor at all on
the subject, and endeavored to explain, somewhat awkwardly, that as Mr. Medlicot was a new-comer, he probably might
not understand the kind of treatment to which employers in
the bush were occasionally subject from their men. On this
matter he said much, which, had he been a better tactician,
he might probably have left unspoken. He then went on to
the story of his own quarrel with Nokes, who had, in truth,
been grossly impudent to the women about the house, but
who had been punished by instant and violent dismissal from
his employment. It was evidently Harry’s idea that a man who
had so sinned against his master should be allowed to find no
other master — at any rate in that district; an idea with which
the other man, who had lately come out from the old country,
did not at all sympathize.
“Do you want me to dismiss him?” said Medlicot, in a tone
which implied that that would be the last thing he would
think of doing.
“You haven’t heard me yet.” Then Harry went on and
told of the fires in the heat of summer, and of their terrible effects — of the easy manner of revenge which they supplied to
angry, unscrupulous men, and of his own fears at the present
moment.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
“I can believe it all,” said Medlicot, “and am very sorry
that it should be so. But I can not see the justice of punishing
a man on the merest, vaguest suspicion. Your only ground for
imputing this crime to him is that your own conduct to him
may have given him a motive.”
Harry had schooled himself vigorously during the ride
as to his own demeanor, and had resolved that he would be
cool. “I was going on to tell you,” he said, “what occurred that
night after I saw you up by the fence.” Then he described how
he and his boy had entered the shed, and had both seen and
heard a man as he escaped from it; how the boy had at once declared that the man was Nokes; how the following day he had
discovered the leaves, which Nokes no doubt had deposited
there just before the rain, intending to burn the place at once;
and how Nokes’s manner to him within the last half hour had
corroborated his suspicions.
“Is he the boy you call Jacko?”
“That’s the name he goes by.”
“You don’t know his real name?”
“I have never heard any other name.”
“Nor any thing about him?” Harry owned, in answer to
half a dozen such questions, that Jacko had come to Gangoil
about six months ago — he did not know whence — had been
kept for a week’s job, and had then been allowed to remain
about the place without any regular wages. “You admit it was
quite dark,” continued Medlicot.
Harry did not at all like the cross-examination, and his
resolution to be cool was quickly fading. “I told you that I saw
myself the figure of a man.”
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